Painting Your Walls Before You List, 
Is The Best Thing You Can Do!

Painting... Sixth Money-Wise Renovation for Good Return on Your Investment.

Refreshing your walls... now here's a great idea if you plan on selling your home. You may feel that painting your home prior to listing, is the last thing you want to do, but please stop for a moment and consider this money generating option.

For a short moment, step into the buyer's shoes and look at your perhaps not so fresh walls. Or if your walls have been painted recently but you chose the colors to match your vibrant, bright orange sofa... then repainting, not only should be on your "to do list", but it should be the first thing you do.

Since in their mind, your house will need a lot of work... where do you think the money for this huge paint job will come from? From the offer that they will bring. Substantial amount will be subtracted from the number that you expect and allocated to painting of the house.

Let's start with paint colors. If your decor is neutral to start with, and your walls are already painted with calming, warm, light colors, then all you need to do is to match the new paint color to what's on the walls. To do that you need to bring in a sample.

You can bring home the paint chips and match the color as close as possible, (since you are painting entire wall, there is no need for an exact match). Or if you need to be more specific, turn off the power, remove the wall switch plate and carefully peel off the layer of paint to take to the store to match.

Be sure that you do not choose the shiny paint. Egg shell is still washable and does not have any shine, it is perfect for most areas from bathrooms and kitchens, to hallways, kids rooms and family rooms. It will hide most wall imperfections too.

If your walls look like the rainbow exploded and colors landed randomly on them... then you will have a bit more work to do. First thing to do is to forget about what you like. This is no longer for you. Your objective is to present your home in the best possible light, and to convince the buyers that it is in fact your home that they absolutely must have. In order to do that, you must choose colors that will work with most furniture. Again, calming, warm and light colours are the right choice here. If people can envision their furniture in your home and on the right "drop cloth" of your freshly painted walls, you are on your way to a quick house sale.

But, "paint can be quite expensive", you might say... If you need to paint most of your home, because your previous colour choices were rather... brave... then you can save money by painting in one colour and choosing a 5 gallon bucket of paint instead of 5 1-gallon cans, choose a good quality primer and paint to save on time, you will only one coat instead of several, to cover your walls. If you looking for even greater bargain... be sure to check the "mistake corner" at your Big Box Store. Don't forget your basement or attic, perhaps there is leftover paint hiding there too.

I love to experiment, and am quite brave... so on occasion I have been know to use what I have along with the $7.00/gallon mistake paint to come up with beautiful shades for my walls. My last home was painted with several shades of soft, mossy green. 5 gallon bucket of medium, moss green was about $25.00, off it went onto my kid's bedroom walls, then a long forgotten almost full gallon of soft yellow was added to the bucket and mixed. That was used in the kitchen and main hallway. Then I found a 3/4 full can of off-white and added that into the mix. The result was a calming, light and soft green that you find in many model homes today.

Final result looked like I spend thousands on the Decorator who choose the colour pallet for my home. Why did it work? Because the base for all those colour variations was the same and that's why they all worked together.

Did I mentioned that you do not need to paint yourself? You can ask a handy relative for help, or hire a student and have a job done in a weekend.

So before you get upset with your Realtor, when she suggest a paint job... think for a moment about the benefits. A small investment of your time and a bit of money, can get you that one offer that will put a big smile on your face.

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I'm Always Here to Help

If you have questions about up-to-date market conditions, would like to get my Price Analysis, or simply would like to know what that home next door is listed for... I'm always available to provide that information.

Perhaps you are considering a sale, but are just not sure what would be the best way to proceed in this changing market.

Or maybe you are the First Time Buyer, excited to enter the Housing Market, and have more questions than your would like to handle on your own...

Please give me a call at 705-241-4249

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